Recently, a Chhattisgarh tribal couple along with their two minor kids, were found hanging from a tree on the outskirts of a village in Jashpur district of the state. They belonged to Pahadi Korvas- one of the seven “particularly vulnerable tribal groups” (PVTGs) in Chhattisgarh and one of the 75 such tribes across 17 states in India.
Particularly vulnerable tribal groups
- The Ministry of Tribal Affairs categorises PVTGs as the most vulnerable among India’s scheduled tribes that usually inhabit isolated, remote and difficult to access areas in small and scattered habitats.
- In the early 1960’s, the UN Dhebar led commission for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes said that there were four “layers” of scheduled tribes, the lowest of which were “extremely underdeveloped.”
- Based on this, in 1973, the Union government created a separate category called “primitive tribes”, renamed particularly vulnerable tribal groups(PVTG) in 2006, each with abysmally low development indices.
- On March 1 this year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman underlined the need for special attention and launched the ₹15000 crore Pradhan Mantri PVTG Development Mission, to be implemented in three years under the Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes.
